Chronic Pain

This is a phrase which is frequently used when discussing healthcare, but what does it mean?

It generally refers to the duration of pain and is usually taken to mean pain lasting for three months or more.

This is distinguished from acute pain, which is the pain experienced at the outset from an injury. Typically, acute pain will manifest itself as a sharp pain with tenderness, heat and swelling around the area affected. In time, these signs of inflammation generally disappear however the patient is sometimes left with a residual dull, achy pain which persists even though the original injury has largely resolved.

This is due to feedback loops which can become established within the nervous system. When a particular neural pathway is overstimulated by an injury, it provides excitatory stimulation to the central nervous system which lowers our threshold for pain. This can be further exacerbated by compensatory changes the body makes to cope with injuries.

An osteopath can treat the cause and symptoms of chronic pain in the body's tissues by improving fluid exchange, encouraging joint movement and working with the nervous system to re-establish pain thresholds at previous levels.